Airspace from ground level to 400 feet is about to get really crowded. Keep alert, fellow pilots! Am I overstating this situation? I don’t think so.
You know about drones. You may not know they are presently restricted to visual line of sight. However, a line-of-sight drone won’t get your Amazon package delivered a few miles from the distribution center to your house.
Throughout Covid, a group has been working on potential changes to FAA regulations to allow drones to fly further, beyond visual line of sight (as military drones do now). It’s abbreviated BVLOS.
It is impossible to keep up with all the regulatory actions from dozens of agencies. Some of this stuff is dry as old bones. The document I’m focused on runs to 381 pages. If you’re a real glutton for punishment, read the whole thing.
The good news = This is only an industry committee report.
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Speed Cruiser from B.O.T. Aircraft Now Available as Journey from Aero Affinity
The title of this article contains a lot of information. If you are a close observer of light aircraft, you may recognize B.O.T.’s Speed Cruiser but you didn’t get the rest right away, did you? Now Available? Journey? Aero Affinity? Neither did I know these references until Sun ‘n Fun 2022, but here is the story.
I’ll get to Speed Cruiser, ‘er… Journey in a minute but first a bit about a new collaboration forming at the DeLand, Florida airport. You know the place, where the DeLand Showcase ran for five years. In case you missed the news, DeLand Showcase is no more. Director Jana Filip departed to join Sun ‘n Fun so the event she expertly ran will now give way to something new, from someone else. More on that later.
Although the DeLand Showcase prematurely ended its five-year run, the DeLand Airport remains a beehive of recreational aviation activity.
NEWS Update — Started at Sun ‘n Fun… Preparing for AirVenture Oshkosh 2022
My moment of truth is fast approaching. Will I succeed or fail to predict the future?
I have been repeating my forecast that FAA will announce a draft of their newest regulation, called an NPRM (Notice of Proposed Rule Making) at EAA’s big summer celebration of flight. I’m not betting the farm, though. I think it’s a fairly safe prediction.
To win an increase in their budget a few years back, FAA agreed to complete a new regulation by December 31, 2023. That new reg is widely known as Mosaic; its full name is Modernization of Special Airworthiness Certification. Because FAA has said the agency needs 16 months to read every comment and adjust the final regulation language accordingly, seeing the future is simple math. Go back in time 16 months from the end-of-year deadline in 2023 and you end up at… yep! — AirVenture Oshkosh 2022. We will see if they meet their goal.
Announcing: Launch of the Part 103 List, a One-of-a-Kind Resource in Affordable Aviation
To welcome a brand new year in affordable aviation, I am pleased to announce the launch of our Part 103 List. This new list presents 89 Part 103 entries for models built by 57 manufacturers.
[UPDATE 1/18/22 — We made the 103 List even better with the “Model column now leading to info right here on ByDanJohnson.com, when available. Other article changes are shown in red text. —DJ]
Too many people believe this is a minor sector with “no fixed wing aircraft that qualify.” They’re wrong; we have 38 fixed wing producers alone. Some others among the general aviation pilot population thought that Part 103 ultralights had disappeared completely. They could not be more wrong.
Not only are plenty of Part 103 ultralights being produced, they come in many diverse shapes and plenty of them are being sold.
Clearly, it’s about time a list like this one got published to put the record straight!
Affordable Aviation — Can You Find a Budget-Meeting Aircraft for 2022?
This website regularly promotes affordable aviation. Can you genuinely find an aircraft you like that is affordable? If so, are the smaller shows — ones I call “sector-specific” — the place to find them?
Those two questions come up all the time on ByDanJohnson.com.
When you read Flying magazine or AOPA Pilot, the odds are low that readers of this website will find something they can afford. Both titles do a high quality job of covering aviation and I am glad they continue (though Flying is scaling back their print magazine to just four times a year). Yet the aircraft these two periodicals cover are almost never something I can afford; you may feel similarly.
The fact is most aviation magazines and the bigger airshows are full of aircraft most of us cannot afford.
DeLand Showcase
Midwest LSA Expo
and Affordability
First the good news. Yes, you can find affordable aircraft (here is a series of examples).
Sun ‘n Fun 2021 / Wrap Up — More Airplane News Will Follow, but How Was this Year’s Event?
Everyone has returned home from the first major airshow in too long (other than the wonderful sector-specific event called Midwest LSA Expo). Well… everyone went home except a substantial group of volunteers who stick around for days or even weeks afterward to clean up and prepare for next season. Thanks to all volunteers for their efforts that make these events possible!
However, while we celebrate Sun ‘n Fun 2021 having a worthy success, aviation is not out of the woods yet.
Just today, I learned that Aero Friedrichshafen has been cancelled for 2021 — after twice changing the dates in the effort to schedule a time that works for vendors and pilots plus assures safety for those attending.
Aero will next be held in 2022. Main organizer Roland Bosch said, “We have to postpone the Summer Edition of Aero 2021. It’s hard, but it is the best solution [given these] circumstances, I think.” Europe remains much more locked down and restricted than the USA — certainly moreso than Florida, which has been open for many months.
When Help Comes to the Rescue… FAST! Magnum Parachutes Could Save Your Life
Aviation preaches safety long and loud. This dedication within the aviation community has made flying safer than driving despite what landlubbers believe is a risky way to travel.
Aviators know better, of course. We work hard at making flying safe. It’s not lucky or some accident of choice. We are all proud of our skill at taking an airplane aloft and returning it safely to terra firma.
Except when we cannot…
Why Parachutes?
Any way you look at it, an airframe parachute adds cost, weight, and bulk.
These systems cost real money (thousands), add “non-functioning” weight (16 to 50 pounds depending on the airplane’s weight and speed), and fill up space you might use otherwise (a BRS system for the Cessna 172 uses a substantial share of the baggage space in that model). All these things — cost, weight, and bulk — are negatives, yet pilots buy these emergency systems regularly.
Modernized Part 103 Ultralights; Here Is Aeroplanes Dar Solo UL and More
Excitement surrounding Part 103 Ultralights continues. Considering what a nightmare of a year the entire world has experienced, many find it incredible that 103s are not only surviving, but thriving.
We still have such models as the popular CGS Hawk and Aerolite 103 that are gusseted-tube structures with Dacron wings; this remains a great choice for light aircraft.
However, we are also getting some advanced configurations. Examples reported recently here are the Aeromarine LSA Merlin Lite, Sector’s Spark, and Top Rudder’s Solo.
In this article, I look at another entry after a reminder from an alert reader …one on which I had previously reported. This one has been around a few years but never established any U.S. presence. That could change as 103 types continue their growth.
Small Airplane Specialist
Aeroplanes DAR
Airplanes Dar is a small innovative company with a long history that started in the previous century… on June 24th, 1917.
Airshows in 2021: Better News on the Horizon but Some Early-Event Cancellations
UPDATE 1/14/21 — Regretfully, I must announce that DeLand has cancelled its Flyway to Highway event “due to Covid-19.” —DJ
After a year of great uncertainty, the earliest airshows of 2021 are feeling the pressure. However, by spring, several organizers hope for great improvement. Here’s some review, good news first and then some cancellations.
Flyway to Highway
DeLand, Florida
Lead organizer Jana Filip first rescheduled the November 2020 DeLand Showcase until January, but that got scrubbed by a very cautious city of DeLand. Now, Jana will host Flyway to Highway at the end of this month.
My friends at General Aviation News got the news out early, “DeLand Airport will host a one-day fly-in/drive-in event on January 30, 2021. Co-sponsored by automaker Tesla, anyone who shows up at the DeLand Airport Management Center can take a test drive in a new Tesla.” Quite a few airplane companies will also display.
The New Part 103 List — Current Draft List Shows MORE Producers …Surprised?
UPDATED (again!) 12/11/20: Still refining the list. —DJ
A great many of you read the article about the new Part 103 List. Your enthusiasm plus lots of comments reflect the strong interest generated by these lightest, most-affordable, and fun-to-fly aircraft.
With input from readers and through more research, I have increased the draft list to the one you see below, now 53 producers strong! Honestly… I expect even more.
Many readers were surprised by the number of producers of these aircraft that too many pilots thought were dead and buried by Light-Sport Aircraft and FAA’s requirement that previous two-seat ultralight trainers had to leave paid flight instruction and become private aircraft.
As the list shows — and as my plan to attempt counting the number of aircraft built every year proves — Part 103 Ultralight Vehicles are indeed alive and thriving.
Keep Helping, Please!
If these aircraft interest you, please review the list and tell me of any additional producers I did not include.
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